Frostbitten &Mutilated

Frostbitten &Mutilated Zak Smith

Sample file Frostbitten &Mutilated Writing and art by Zak Smith Editing by Joshua Blackketter Design by Luka Rejec

www.lotfp.com ISBN Print: 978-952-7238-02-8 ISBN PDF: 978-952-7238-03-5 Printed in Finland by Otava Book Printing, Ltd. First Printing: 5000 copies LamentationsSample of the Flame Princess file is a registered trademark owned by James Edward Raggi IV Dedication

On page 27 of the first D&D book’s first volume there appears an illustration of two creatures—”Beautiful Witch” (left) and “Amazon” (right)—drawn by one Cookie Corey. They are, true to that volume’s subtitle (“Men & Magic”), not described anywhere in the text. The image therefore represents not only the first work done by a woman in RPGs and the first female characters published in an RPG but also the first hack of an RPG. So: this one is for Cookie Corey.

Zak Smith, 2017 Sample file Note on the appropriation of traditional Nordic cultures This book woefully misrepresents Norse culture. I mean—probably it does, it has monsters I made up in it—I don’t know I’m Jewish. Anyway, enjoy.

Sample file “Outside in the cold night the wind moaned and died down, like an idiot in an icy black pit.” -Richard Wright, Native Son

Sample file Table of Contents

How to use this book ...... 9 Drowning Demons ...... 41 Some advice for the referee . . . . . 10 Frost Giants of the Hatemountain . . . 42 Recommended ...... 11 Goat ...... 44 Map of the Devoured Land . . . . . 12 Horses ...... 45 Adventures in the Devoured Land . . 13 King Ovv ...... 46 Getting there ...... 14 Misshaped Animals ...... 47 The Necrobutcher ...... 48 Inhabitants . . . . 15 Nidhoggr ...... 50 Amazons ...... 16 The Noctambulant ...... 52 The Frostbitten Moons ...... 18 Owls ...... 54 The Maggot Sisterhood ...... 22 Pearlholders ...... 56 The Thirteen ...... 24 The Plaguewielder ...... 58 The Ulvenbrigad ...... 26 Ratatoskr ...... 60 Animals in General ...... 30 Rats ...... 61 Arctic Foxes ...... 31 Serpents ...... 62 Arsonists ...... 32 Snakkur ...... 63 Avalanche ...... 34 Snow Leopards ...... 64 Belphegor ...... 35 Trolls ...... 66 Bjära ...... 36 Werewolves ...... 70 Boars ...... 37 Witch Sisters Three ...... 72 Crows ...... 38 Wolves ...... 76 DogsSample ...... 40 Worms ...... file. . . . . 78 Calendar and Map . . . 79 How to Make a Events ...... 80 Wilderness Sandbox . 121 The Map ...... 82 Locations ...... 84 Random Tables . . 123 Adventure Elements ...... 124 The Dim Fortress . . 91 Adventure Locations ...... 126 Map ...... 92 Amazon Divination Games . . . . 128 Locations ...... 94 Amazon Tribes, New ...... 130 Breaking Curses ...... 132 Sevenfold Tower . . . 96 Confrontations ...... 132 Maps ...... 99 Deformations of the Misshaping Pool 133 I Search the Body ...... 134 Character classes, spells, If You Look Closely ...... 135 substances, and survival Injuries ...... 136 skills ...... 101 Random Encounters ...... 138 Amazon Warriors ...... 102 Rival NPC Parties ...... 140 Witches as Player Characters . . . 106 Witch Spells of the Devoured Land . .112 Index ...... 141 New Substances ...... 118 SurvivalSample Skills in the Devoured Land 119 Endpapers . . file. . 145 THE GODS FROZE SOUNDS— pered into one in each one making words—and set the hundred thousand right ears, creatures working, to cut saying “Twenty-one words languages from the ice . A are poison, but I know not troll was set to grinding and which . Take no sense from was resentful, despising all the tongues of men . Go now improvement . The grinding uncorrupted ”. troll worked, but poisoned twenty-one words in every When women were assem- tongue—so they would work bled, one in one hundred a mischief in the mouths of thousand were given these men and bring them to ruin . ears and this mark—that they would be made weary by the The She-Goat knew what the speech of men, and avoid it . gods did not, and sought They dwell now alone in the to thwart the grinding-troll . long cold crawling—heeding She went to the Place of the no-one . Ears of Women and whis-

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8 How to use this book

This book basically has three parts: †† tools and toys to help you make adventures featuring extremely metal things like warrior women, frost giants, and apocalyptic monsters †† a specific setting (The Devoured Land) with specific places in it and maps and specific people and monsters that want specific stuff that you can use if you want †† a calendar of events that begins when the party arrives in The Devoured Land and which will move forward if the party doesn’t do anything about them

…you should be able to use all-, most-, or some of these parts without anything bad happening. However, I don’t recommend using none of them—I mean I don’t know your situation personally but probably if you do that your game will suck and you’ll die weeping on a pile of rags, universally despised.

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9 Some advice for the Referee

Get the right music. Then, before you run of their face, their many ways, their words. the game, create the quietest, darkest situation Give it some time there. Know that you are you can. human, that to despise is human and what is Sit without moving, with your finger resting common to your kind is natural. It is of nature. lightly on the music button—whichever it is: Knowing this hate, knowing this unity, know play, enter, the click, the rightward arrow. this too: this is how the landscape feels about Think of an empty landscape—only the drag your players’ characters. This is it how it views of a flatlining horizon separates white sky from their trespass, the formlessness of the way they white earth. There is one thing: a lone thin slather themselves across itself. Their steps set black tree, bare, reaching like a python. It is a the entire cold world to seething. It needs, and distant but clear shape. seeks, their downfall. By force and by calcula- Imagine it. Imagine it and hear your own tion. By means known and as yet unknown. It breath. In and then out again. Touch the will devise methods. This is nature: it will inno- button. vate to extend the reach of its hate. There’s a second silhouette that emerges Turn the light back on, your players are com- beneath and it is the silhouette of the worst per- ing—but look at your hand and make a claw, son you know. Imagine, summon and indulge then from the claw make a fist. Hold what you real emotion—a person for whom you feel (not have learned there in that fist. Keep it away— believe you should feel—but feel) total enmity, these are, after all, your friends. It is important total opposition—and if you subscribe to a to have allies in this life and you owe them all philosophy whereby these emotions are to be you can spare—you owe them all the warmth in suppressed, put away that philosophy now. It is the world. Give them snacks—give them what- given to you to know that for this foe there is no ever will please them most, tell them jokes. For- hope of reform and no other life where punish- tify them against less merciful futures. ment will be administered. They stand, seeing But when you are at play and must play the you as you see them. cold world described in this book and its mani- In the sound and the dark, totally experience festations, you now know its heart. You hold it yourSample hatred of them, the heat of it, the hatred quietly in one hand, and mayfile consult it.

10 Recommended

Read these: The Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur 1916 trans- lation of the Gylfaginning in Snorri Sturlson’s Younger Edda is a good place to start—that’s where you can read about how they made the sky out of a rime-giant’s skull and whatnot. The rest of the Eddas are recommended by anyone who writes an RPG book with viking stuff in it. Fritz Leiber’s The Snow Women is the best Fafhrd and Grey Mouser short story and one of the best short stories period and one of the best things period. So read it even if you don’t ever play a game again. Walt Simonson’s Thor issues 337-367 and 380, the all-full-page-art issue where Thor fights the Midgard Serpent. Mallory Ortberg’s Early Signs of Pregnancy. Maybe this: I have very dim memories of being read Ste- ven Bauer’s novel Satyrday as a child and it probably influenced my treatment of animals here. I almost gave the moon stats. Listen to this: For True Norwegian Black Metal, Immortal is my favorite, and “All Shall Fall” is the maximum dose. For the Amazons themselves the soundtrack is Thorr’s Hammer, Jex Thoth, Kylesa, and 13 (the 13 that did “Whore” “Hollow” and “Writhe”). Svartsinn is good to have on in dungeons andSample Wolves in the Throne Room is good file everywhere else.

11 See pages 82–83.

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12 Adventures in the Devoured Land

Sometimes the snow will not stop. Under its Gold particled screen like layers of veil that would Something plunders those caravans that make of the world a bride to an unknown, vast never come back. Some say there are greedy and unseen groom all civilization is wonder- frost giants with great hoards, but some say ing from its hearths and stone corners: What this is a lie told by cowards to disguise having is to be done about the women? They spit and fled frightened from armed women. rage, they drown the taxmen, they hack the bellies of snakes and eat what they find, they Anarchy abort babies and squeeze their milk into the The lawless Devoured Land is a place for a bellies of troll-cats, they dwell apart among party to hide if they are fugitives and a place the wide white peaks, raiding, scheming, for them to scour if they are in pursuit of one. speaking to animals, willful and without trade or diplomatic discourse—the witch-women Wisdom and amazons. They dominate and divide the It may be the oldest place in the world. Devoured Land. Who can see this ending well? Some claim the Darkthrone of Ovv, the first Why might you travel to the Devoured king, lies somewhere deep in the mountains’ Land—a death-place where mountains, belly. Some say the worst three witches live in ice-crowned, claw at the sky and nothing is the Devoured Land, and that they will incul- ordinary? cate the end of all things. There is magic here not seen since night first divided from day. Embryoctony Midwives in every city whisper that the Amazons know the secrets to safely unseat a child before it can escape a womb to inhale and swallow a soul, and that the herbs of Mount Hellebor make the procedure painless. Desper- ate women of good families have been known to disguise themselves and quietly hire bands of armed escorts to take them north, while claim- Sampleing to be visiting aunts in warmfile climes.

13 Getting there

You are not yet in the Devoured Land, where there are no men alive and the world is ripped away from itself. You will be soon. The unexplored wastes are large, do what you like with them. Outside the map you will be given, with 64 areas partially filled in for you, there are only four things to remember: the sea—from which flows the River Slith, the Hatemoun- tain—where the frost giants live, and two outposts of what men do, and women often do not, call “civilization”. They are: Nornrik This is a city, with a castle and lords and everything. Sophisticated, brittle, mannered. As large as you’re comfortable making it. If you prefer a historical city, you Although this module is set in the same can use Trondheim, which was the Norwegian world as my book Vornheim: The Complete City capital during the Viking era and is eminently Kit, it can as easily be set in a semi-historical Googleable. Norway. Just remember Norway has no East coast, so its equivalent of Rottingkroner would Rottingkroner be somewhere to the west of the Devoured The closest harbor to the Devoured Land, Land map provided. also known as Rotting Crowns—named We’re going to the Devoured Land now, for the enfolding shape of the abraded rock which will first be described by describing who formations comprising the surrounding fjord. lives there in alphabetical order. This is sur- Merchants and seaman come to be tattooed, prisingly convenient: It starts with Amazons, regaled with rumor, murdered, and inveigled Animals, and Avalanches, and finishes with into any other grotty seaport cliché your cam- Witches and Wolves and Worms. paignSample requires. file

Inhabitants The Devoured Land is distant, unfathomed. explicit. The shadow falls across the rock, and the They say the cleft peaks are the uneaten half left rock despises that. The oldest witch is here, the torn when the first Cannibal God bit the world. proudest stag, the most vicious wolf, the fattest Things there are as things were in the day before hog and most lustful goat, the most avid crow, the all days, when all that is now knew a common most resentful of rats, and worms so lazy they have tongue and a young, smoother moon hung pearl- been here since “here” began. like in a black bed gestating the unborn stars. There are trees that grew in first rain, and horses TheSample ice is clearer, the wind sharper, every sound that have never known afile rider, stones cut by the echoes, and all time unravels with a clear and open hand of the first women and recut by thousands order. The ancient tolerance with which each con- after, parasites grown from the guts of the first temporary thing regards and gnaws at the thing men, there are fortresses buried since the first bat- adjacent in our sensical and passive-aggressive tle. It’s said time started and will end in this place. world is here undone, and all struggle is known, 15 Sample file

16 Inhabitants AMAZONS

Who says this? The Amazons. But then: they will These are the daughters of the she-goat and they say anything. To you, anyway. I know because have chosen another path. you can read this and I wrote it and I wrote it in Their diet is meat mixed with things found a language of cities and so if you can read it you while looking for meat, every craft they possess are not one of them. So they will lie to you. Or tell is taught after having learned the lessons of axes, you the truth. Whichever is more likely to frighten bonebreaking, and the taking of blood. Amazons you away. If their knives, their war animals, their that are neither hunters nor reavers nor witches bacchanals,Sample their cultured exotoxins, their enmity, are called children—they file have stats as ordinary cuisine, enigmatic gods, complex obstetrics, and humans and will bite for d4 damage. internecine warfare have not frightened you first. These are a few of their tribes.